Prairie County Literacy Council

Arbie Nesbitt

Arbie Nesbitt was born between Des Arc and McClellon on the farm. His grandmother acted as his mother’s midwife. His grandfather worked on the Dixie Plantation.

Arbie entered the literacy program in October 2008. He had very little formal education up to that time. He had attended first grade in McCroy. He then moved to New Mexico where he lived for three years and in that time went to school for a period of one week. He then moved back to Gill, Arkansas and attended second and third grade. The owner of the local grocery store, Orin Dooley, was the school principal at gill. This was the total sum of Arbie’s education.

In 1960, at the age of 16, Arbie went to work at the Texaco station in Brinkley. Next, he went to work in West Memphis at the Gateway Truck Stop. He worked there for four years o the south side of the truck stop. Arbie learned most of his reading and writing skills there because he had to write down the names from the sides of the trucks for bookkeeping reasons. It was actually just copying the names because he could not read most of them at first, but as time went by he learned to read many of them On into this job, he was promoted to shop foreman and one of his duties was to fill out orders. The orders had many preset jobs listed such as oil change and he had to learn to recognize these on the work orders. This improved his reading ability somewhat.

In 1984, Arbie went to work at Taylor Oil in DeValls Bluff. In 1991, Taylor Oil became MFA, which it still is today. Arbie is still there and has become “Building Plant Manager” despite having what some might call a disability.

Since October, Arbie has worked through the last Laubach student workbook, all the Challenger series and will soon be in the Voyager series. He tries to make his classes three times a week and seldom misses. He has set this goal himself of learning to read and he is determined to see it through.

Determination, ambition, confidence and willingness for change can do great things for a person. If you have any questions, about that, ask Arbie!